n," as Chenet
called it to himself, his two fat, flabby legs, and the apoplectic
rotundity of the old official; and raising the white Panama hat from his
head, he said with a snigger:

"I am not so sure of that, old fellow; your mother is as tough as nails,
and I should say that your life is not a very good one."

This rather upset Caravan, who did not speak again until the tram put
them down at their destination, where the two friends got out, and
Chenet asked his friend to have a glass of vermouth at the Cafe du
Globe, opposite, which both of them were in the habit of frequenting.
The proprietor, who was a friend of theirs, held out to them two
fingers, which they shook across the bottles of the counter; and then
they joined three of their friends, who were playing dominoes, and who
had been there since midday. They exchanged cordial greetings, with the
usual question: "Anything new?" And then the three players continued
their game, and held out their hands without looking up, when the others
wished them "Good-night," and then they both went home to dinner.

Caravan lived in a small two-story house in Courbevaie, near where the
roads meet; the ground floor was occupied by a hair-dresser. Two
bed rooms, a dining-room and a kitchen, formed the whole of their
apartments, and Madame Caravan spent nearly her whole time in cleaning
them up, while her daughter, Marie-Louise, who was twelve, and her
son, Phillip-Auguste, were running about with all the little, dirty,
mischievous brats of the neighborhood, and playing in the gutter.

Caravan had installed his mother, whose avarice was notorious in the
neighborhood, and who was terribly thin, in the room above them. She was
always cross, and she never passed a day without quarreling and flying
into furious tempers. She would apostrophize the neighbors, who were
standing at their own doors, the coster-mongers, the street-sweepers,
and the street-boys, in the most violent language; and the latter, to
have their revenge, used to follow her at a distance when she went out,
and call out rude things after her.

A little servant from Normandy, who was incredibly giddy and
thoughtless, performed the household work, and slept on the second floor
in the same room as the old woman, for fear of anything happening to her
in the night.

When Caravan got in, his wife, who suffered from a chronic passion for
cleaning, was polishing up the mahogany chairs that were scattered about
the ro